Sources

Theories and Opinions Behind Teaching Personal Writing:

• http://works.bepress.com/peter_elbow/1/
  • This article by Peter Elbow offers the kinds, occasions, benefits, and handling of low stakes writing.

• http://peabloggy.wordpress.com/2007/10/25/narrative-writing-in-the-classroom/
  • This website is a teacher’s blog that chats about the issues raised when teaching narrative writing in the classroom. Interesting perspectives.

• http://www.compositionstudies.tcu.edu/bookreviews/online/32-2/holt.html
  • This is an introduction to a text that talks about narrative writing and more general “risky writing”. It talks about the benefits being that students will see the transformational potential of writing. He talks about how self-reflection allows growth and that this is important for students, especially struggling students who feel a disconnect from the things they are learning in school.

• http://www.dartmouth.edu/~writing/materials/faculty/forum/conversations/personal.html
  • GREAT website! This site offers great ways to make connections between personal writing and analytical or traditional writing in the classroom. They understand the need for the personal, but the pull towards the analytical, thus the site offers great ideas for combining the two.

-Transition toward the academic community.
-Use personal responses, but room them to a text.
-Ask students to analyze their personal writing.
-Have students write a personal essay framed by an analytical intro/conclusion.
-Assign journals and then use the journals as a resource for another essay.
-Anecdotal introductions to analytical essays.

Best Practices for Activities and Exercises:

• http://teachers.sduhsd.k12.ca.us/kburke/personal%20writing%20examples.htm
  • This site offers great student examples of personal writing.

• http://teacher2b.com/creative/createwr.htm
  • This website offers lesson plans and activities for various creative writing situations.

• http://www.creativewritingprompts.com/index.php#
  • This site offers 329 writing prompts for teachers to use during free-write time.

• http://www.dailywritingtips.com/using-writing-bursts-to-generate-ideas-and-enthusiasm/
  • This site explains how to use “writing bursts” in the classroom.

• http://teacher2b.com/creative/creativp.htm
  • This is a teacher’s sample unit and set of lessons for her creative writing class.

• Jim Burke's text, The English Teacher's Companion
  • Known to many as the English Teacher's Bible, this text offers 540 pages worth of material for new teachers. I have found several useful and meaningful activities that touch on the multiple intelligences and reach for higher understanding of novels that are applicable in this personal narrative unit.

• George Hillocks Jr's text, Narrative Writing
  • This is an amazing book devoted entirely to teaching the personal narrative. Yet, the great thing about the book is that each lesson or activity could be modified in any way for another genre. Just as we need to scaffold our students, Hillocks sets the book up in chronological order for the teacher. He justifies every piece of his unit in a way that allows us as teachers to understand why we do what we do. Hillocks pushes teachers to find ways to get their students to become active learners through writing personally meaningful content. The book is filled with hands-on activities and great lesson ideas.

• Peter Smagorinsky's text, Teaching English by Design
  • WIth a mix of theory and practice, this text offers an explanation for conceptual unit planning. I used this a great deal when planning my unit around a concept rather than solely personal narratives. Coming into this year, I had no idea how to even create a unit, let alone a personal narrative unit, and Smagorinsky's text gives step by step instructions for doing this, as well as why we should do it this way. On top of all of this, the book offers great ideas and lesson.